Knights of the Old Republic: Tabula Rasa
by WysdomsGirl
Summary: KotOR LSF Revan deals with grief and betrayal following a terrible revelation about her past. Enter Carth Onassi. Rated PG13 for strong language.


**Disclaimers, provisos, caveats, etc:** I don't own anything.

**Spoilers:** HUGE. If you haven't played Knights of the Old Republic yet, don't read this.

**Notes:** I've played up until the big Revan revelation. Wow. I love this game. I wrote this because I felt so terrible for my main character. I don't know how or if Carth finally comes around about the whole issue, but the following is what happens in my world. **Update: 20.02.2006: **I had completely forgotten about this ficlet, but I'm delighted that it's still getting readers. Edited for formatting issues (something in the submission process ate my ellipses and double-dashes . ) and tightening up a bit of sloppy prose here and there . Oh, and by now, obviously, I've finished KoTOR several times... and the following is /still/ the way it happens in my world ;)

Feedback is entirely welcome!

Enjoy!

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"Once upon a time..."

The sound of her own voice startled her. Sometimes that happened--she would speak before she even realized her own intention. She blinked, her eyes uncomfortably moist, tear-swollen; her lashes wet against her cheekbones.

Who was she speaking to? Her tiny, ersatz quarters on the _Ebon Hawk_ were empty: she had come here to be alone. It would be a few more hours before they reached Manon, and her entire world had just been shattered.

A little "me time" didn't seem like a great deal to ask, considering.

She pushed herself up and swung her legs off the bunk: resting her weight on her hands, hanging her head, breathing deep. She felt like she'd been trampled by stampeding bantha. Her heart--no, her chest and gut, too... everything inside her hurt.

She was no stranger to pain... She'd suffered the gut-twisting agony of lethal neuro-toxin, taken wounds in battle that would make a Mandalorian warrior whimper like a little girl. She'd held out for hours in a Sith torture chamber... but this...

Everything inside her had been scooped out, replaced with something that festered and oozed. Anguish. Betrayal.

Rage.

She shook her head violently, one arm shooting out as though to hold the emotion physically at bay. Pain, betrayal... those she was entitled to. _In spades,_ she thought, grimly. But not anger. Anger led to hate.

"Hate leads to suffering," she said aloud, forcing calm andconviction she didn't feel into the words. She scrubbed at her eyes, swallowed against the appallingly painful lump in her throat, and stood.

"Once upon a time, then," she began again. There was no one to hear... and if they did? She snorted a mirthless laugh. It wasn't as though thinking her mad would lower anyone's opinion.

"There lived a family called Prophet," she continued, kneeling down to open her pack, a modest satchel that contained all she owned in the Universe. "Jedda Prophet was an artist. A man of extraordinary talent and... extraordinary kindness."

Her vision swam with fresh tears, and she shut her eyes. _Why are you doing this to yourself?_

"His wife, Honor, was a musician... beautiful and gifted. They had one child," her voice caught, and she paused to master the spasm in her throat. "A daughter, born late in their lives--a surprise, they always said, of the most delightful kind."

Her hands found the familiar, hidden pocket and the thin, alloy box--about the size of her hand--within.

"A blessing."

A gentle push prompted the lid to slide back with a faint, vacuum hiss. "They named her Skye."

Inside the box was a piece of paper, folded in quarters and yellow with age. A drawing. She unfolded this artifact with exquisite care.

And there she was, captured in loving, graceful strokes of ink: leaning against her mother's side... long, dark tresses and solemn, dreamer's eyes. Skye Prophet.

The girl who never was.

Grief overwhelmed her, a raw explosion that ripped a sob from her chest. "I hate you," she whispered, her voice a grating hiss. A tear fell, blurring the features of nine-year-old Skye to nothing but a watery smudge. "You sick, twisted, _duplicitous_ sons of Gammorean _sows_. I _hate_ you!"

She crumpled the paper into a ball and threw its insubstantial weight with all her might.

"They're dead now, Skye." Carth Onassi stood in the low, narrow doorway, his voice quiet and restrained. "If they betrayed--" he stopped himself, paused, then amended, "No. That's not right. Not _if_. They _did_ betray you. I can't--"

"Go away."

Her face was hidden by the unbound fall of her long, dark hair. It occurred to him, then, that he'd never seen her that way before--with her hair down. Not that it had looked bad up, but--

_And this_, he thought, yanking his train of thought off an impending tangent, _is why women believe men are stupid. And you know what—they're not wrong._ He took a hesitant step inside. "Skye--"

She shot to her feet, wheeling on him in one fluid, dazzlingly quick (and potentially deadly, Carth remembered with unease) motion. "I said go _away_!"

He blinked. Some women cried gracefully; she did not. Her face was mottled with red, her eyes swollen and bloodshot... "You look like hell."

Carth grimaced and checked his wrist for the chronometer he wasn't wearing. _That's got to be a new record—what, less than two minutes in the same room with her and I've already got both feet, boots and all, stuck in my mouth--_

Then, the most remarkable thing happened.

She laughed.

From the look of him, Skye didn't know who was more startled. Still... _Carth_. Saying something like that was just so... him. And the wince. And the chagrined series of amendments and explanations she saw him scrambling to assemble.

Yes. Vintage Carth Onassi, that.

For a fleeting moment, an unexpected and overwhelming tenderness flooded her. "Yeah," she agreed, softly, turning away. "Well... the Sith don't cry very often. Must be why."

"Don't say that," Carth said, more sharply than he had intended. He took a deep breath, coming fully into the room. "You're... listen..." his voice was gentler, now, "You _aren't_ Sith, okay? You're just..." He fumbled for words. "..._not_."

She forced herself to meet his eyes, twitching a sickly smile. "They were afraid. Afraid... that if they told me the truth, if I remembered, I'd fall again. I'd go back to the Dark Side." She laughed again, and the sound chilled him. "Well, guess what? I _don't_ remember... Who I was, what I felt—I have no _idea _how or why I started on that path... But I don't _need _to remember."

She was drowning, feeling the throbbing, poison abscess in her chest claim her again. "This anger. This... _pain_. I can _see,_ now, how it happened. How it _happens._" She wanted to laugh again, but killed the impulse as it was born. If she opened her mouth, she might just as easily start screaming. She didn't trust herself to know the difference. "I didn't know _how _to hate! Or at least... I didn't remember. But now I do. Because the Jedi taught me. Isn't that hilarious?"

Carth said nothing. He simply watched her, and wondered how many times in one life a heart could be broken. _How many times can the same woman break it?_

In the awkward silence that followed, his eyes skimmed the room, falling on the wad of paper that lay forlornly in the corner. He crouched and picked it up, letting his fingers work at unfurling it, an exercise in helpless fidgeting. "Skye--"

"Don't call me that," she interrupted, her tone flat and cold.

He looked up at her sharply, feeling a lick of temper. "No? Well what should I call you then? Master Jedi? Sith Lord?" He paused a beat, knowing the answer. "Darth Revan?"

"My friends probably called me 'Rev'." She remembered then, with a sense of loss so great it took her breath away, that Carth Onassi no longer fell into that category. "Yeah," she amended, quickly, turning and distancing herself the one good stride the room allowed. "Revan is fine."

"Well, tough shit," Carth snapped, noting with satisfaction that she stopped short in the act of twitching a bed sheet into place. _Good_. "That's not who you are. _Darth_ _Revan_ destroyed my life--"

She turned on him again, fists and jaw clenched. "What, then? Wha'd'ya wanna call me, Carth? _Skye?_ Skye Prophet doesn't--" _Skye Prophet doesn't exist. _But it didn't need to be said. He had smoothed open the paper, finally, and his eyes were no longer on her. His expression was one of sick disbelief.

"Oh, god." he murmured, thickly. Carth had thought he understood what was done to Revan, fallen Jedi, Dark Lord of the Sith. He had thought it was too good for such a monster. "Is this you?"

She nodded. "No."

She watched him grope for something inadequate to say and shook her head, dismissing any sentiment before he could voice it. "I remember that day," she murmured, sinking down to sit on the edge of her bunk. "So clearly. I always thought I had such an exceptional memory, y'know? All... that _detail_. From the time I was a baby... All those moments, sensations, feelings." She turned her face up to the ceiling, remembering things that never were. She could feel the sun on her skin. "I was nine. We went on a picnic. My father drew that picture." It was so vivid, even now: the smell of spring, rioting wildflowers; the gentle breeze; her mother's voice, reading her favorite story.

She looked again to find him watching her, his expression helpless and anguished. She smiled bleakly. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The picture? The memory? It looks... authentic. Like it was drawn so long ago... with so much love. And I've kept it with me all this time."

Carth sat abruptly, letting his head fall back against the wall. He stared at the ceiling for a long moment, his throat working against a lump of grief. "It's counterfeit," he said, dully. "It wasn't... enough to give you new memories, was it? They had to make you a memento or two. Corroborating evidence." _The bastards. Stupid, _ARROGANT--

"I didn't know." His words sounded pitifully inadequate to his own ears and he looked to her, his eyes a plea. "Skye," he ignored her wince at the name, "I had _no_ idea. I knew they'd... reprogrammed you. Revan. But I never really thought what that _meant, _exactly. How deep it goes, how... how completely fucked up that leaves you." He shook his head. "You... you haven't just _lost_ the people you loved, you... you have to deal with the fact that you never... That it was all a lie. I..."

He groaned, overwhelmed, and ran his hands through his hair, a quick, frustrated gesture. She was weeping openly now and all he wanted in the Universe, what he'd give his life for, was simply to hold her. "I want to say I'm sorry," he said softly, helplessly. "And I feel like the biggest asshole in the galaxy because I can't think of anything... _better_ to say. I'm... just this big, clumsy wookie when it comes to talking. About feelings. I'm babbling now and you're still crying. I'm just as barbaric as the next male, y'know. I see a woman crying and I immediately want to beat the crap out of something. You know--'cause that's how we men fix things. By... breaking other things. I'm totally caught in the gravitational pull without thrusters, here..."

The babbling set her laughing again, through her tears, and a deeply-gratified Carth Onassi stood and moved to sit beside her. "Skye," he spoke softly, reaching for her hand.

She snatched it away. "Revan," she corrected, sharply.

"NO, damn it!" he shouted, grabbing her shoulders, wrenching her around to face him. "You listen to me! I don't care who you were, you're _not_ Revan, understand? Revan took away my life, _not_ you! You..."

She was staring at him, startled out of both tears and laughter by the sheer force of his emotion. His eyes blazed, then softened as he trailed off, tormented and confused. She realized that she was shaking and that he was, as well.

"You gave it back to me," he said, softly. He studied her face, thunderstruck by his own revelation. "And... I'm not just talking about saving my life, though you've done that more times than I can count. You got me?"

She nodded, mutely, though she looked so completely stupefied that he couldn't be sure. He wasn't sure _he_ understood. Nothing made sense. He only knew what he felt.

Maybe that was all he needed to know.

"I'd forgotten how to live for anything but revenge," he continued, steeling himself with a deep breath. "How to feel anything but... no. No, I'd just forgotten how to _feel_. You changed all that, Skye. You're... the most _exasperating_, infuriating, tenacious woman I've ever met. You poked and prodded and provoked and... drew me out." He shook his head again. Damn... this was hard. "You made me laugh. A lot. And I trusted you and... and I _wasn't_ wrong. You've been--you _are_--worthy of that. You've been my friend--a better friend than I deserved sometimes. Not just to me, but to all of us.

"You see the best in people, Skye, something I've never been able to do, even before... everything that happened." She was crying again, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. Carth cursed himself silently, but he couldn't stop. This all had to be said, and it had to be now. Before he lost his nerve. "You're just... good to people. And I... you're..."

He reached up to touch her cheek, wiping away a tear with his thumb. "Revan is dead," he whispered. "And whether Skye Prophet was born or created by the Jedi on Dantooine... she is very much alive.

"And because of her... so am I."


End file.
